What a Difference an Hour Can Make

What's kind of funny, but not in a funny-ha-ha way, is I read once that Martin Luther King Junior trained himself to function after four hours of sleep a night in order to squeeze more hours out of his day. I was kind of envious of that ability. Of course, you must put the picture in context. The Luther family carried a great burden which brought great danger and eventual death. All I wanted to do was get the laundry folded before the kids woke up.
I had this grand scheme when Simon was born. Let me remind you, and myself, that I have already reared three children. I'm no newbie. Well, I am, but I'm not. You get me? Welcome to motherhood. We were going to co-sleep during the early months, get him on solids around six months, and when he naturally slept through the night on a regular basis I would transfer him to his own little bed in a room with his three older siblings. As it turns out God's plans are much grander than mine. Big surprise, right? How I would have loved to say that those plans included Simon sleeping through the night way before six months old. That's not what happened, as most of you know.
The longest I slept in that first year, no joke, was five hours and that was when the boy was drugged for his hives! Five hours with medication! For a year! It didn't matter if he was sleeping in our bed, in his own bed in our room, or in a bed in a room by himself.
For almost a year now I have been praying and asking for prayer that a miracle would happen and allow me to sleep more. Like I said, God had something else in mind. How easy would it have been to just answer my prayer? With not even a snap of His fingers the boy could have slept twelve hours a night with a nap like my precious little neighbor, Dani, who seems to like to rub his constant sleepiness in my tired face! So what must be God's overall purpose? Well, who knows exactly. However, I am reminded through many mornings and many disappoints that God is sufficient. He fills all my needs. He gets me through. He is full of grace when I am full of grumpiness. He brings energy (um... or naps) when needed. He was enough. He is enough. He is enough for you as well whether or not your child is sleeping through the night.
After nineteen months of experimenting and waking up every three hours I have been inspired with the answer! It helps that he's finally eating solid foods on a more regular basis.
Then... drum roll please... no more than one-hour naps are allowed. Can you believe it!?! One hour naps! Why my fourth has to be like this when I could really use a lot of time in the afternoon to clean dishes and read out loud to older children without having to scream over Simon's shouts... you get the point.
One hour.
It makes a world of difference! Now he goes to sleep by 9:00pm at the latest. He will wake up maybe twice.
Yesterday we had a potluck with our beloved Life Group. I figured what's another hour going to do? It'll just help, right? We'll have a late night. He needs the extra sleep. It'll all work out perfectly. I let him sleep for two hours and used the time to work quietly with Nathan and Kaeley. Sigh. It was peaceful in a quiet way. I read out loud and every word was heard and savored. It was quite self-indulgent.
One hour!.
Simon came home later and didn't go to sleep until after 10:30pm!
I had woken up at 5:00am that morning to experiment with Bible study times. I did get a good Bible study in, but then I kind of stared around the dark house wondering what I was doing up so early. And that's after HE SLEPT THROUGH THE NIGHT! Sigh. You would get excited too. So I'm not sure I'll do the 5:00am thing any time soon, but you can imagine that by 10:30pm I was so tired I could fallen asleep on the floor!
Brad ended up staying up with the night owl and I went to bed. At 2:30am I felt Brad crawl into bed. "What a wonderful husband," I began to think. "Boy, he is just fabulous. Sigh... I love sleeping. I'm so comfortable." I snuggled deep into the covers. "Hmm." Yep. Simon was not liking the lack of human contact. I got up and nursed him to sleep.
4:30am. There it was again. This time I just pulled him into bed with me so I could get some sleep.
One hour, people!
Does it go without saying that I will never let him sleep that long again?
I WILL NEVER LET HIM SLEEP THAT LONG AGAIN!

So here we are. God is gracious yet again. Today I got up a little late and served breakfast in my pajamas and with dragon breath to boot.
Today not only did a dirty woman serve the kids breakfast, but I haven't done much cleaning. And you know what? I don't care! I think as long as I can find important documents and walk through the house without putting a hole through my foot I'm going to call it a day well done!
Martin Luther King Jr. can keep his four hours of sleep. I'm going to take my average six and be thankful. My house will be dirty today. Simon will sleep for an hour. We'll clean the dirty dishes off the kitchen table before we start Math. I probably will have to read out loud be very loud. I'll be thankful for a husband who could care less about what the house looks like (kind of) as long as there's meat for dinner. I'll be thankful I'm a tired mom of four children with a husband at work, instead of a tired black man working for the good of fellow black Americans while evil white men throw bombs through his window.

Sweetness in my bed. I can only say that during the day light hours. At night he's not that cute.

His little foots sticking out of a pile of blankets as he sleeps in the living room. I put him on the couch for nap today as incentive to get him up on time.

My hour is almost up and I have to put more pepperonis on the pizza we're eating for dinner tonight.